"There are countless horrible things happening all over the world and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible." -Auberon Waugh

It’s as if the captain of the Titanic, sailing his spanking new ship through icy northern waters, had been worried mostly about his vessel getting hit by a meteoroid: “The FBI’s most recent national threat assessment for domestic terrorism makes no reference to Islamist terror threats”.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Presumably Lee was being filmed at a secret location, safe from the hordes of white-robed nightriders who rove our nation’s highways, streets and country lanes, gunning down innocent black Americans with impunity, while basking in the unqualified admiration of their lily-white sympathizers. In fact, Lee’s continued existence is a great mystery. Not only has he managed to survive the genocide, but to thrive as one of Hollywood’s most successful movie directors, accumulating accolades from scores of critics and millions of fans, many of whom seem to be Caucasian, and piling up the kind of wealth that one normally associates with the hated 1%.

How did he do it? What cunning plan enabled Lee to hide in plain sight, especially in his earlier years before he was finally in a position to secure himself in some carefully concealed, out-of-the-way, wretched little shack? Some speculate that Lee eluded detection in his youth by wearing a disguise (perhaps a Pee Wee Herman mask); others say that his diminutive stature and pug-dog face may have enabled him to pass as someone’s household pet. Still others, less scientifically-minded, suggest that he possessed a magical porkpie hat that rendered him invisible.

Or maybe the real key to the mystery is this: it isn’t all white people who are out to subjugate African-Americans, but only a few powerful ones, like the late Lyndon Johnson, whose Great Society promised an expansive safety net that turned out to be a cage, locking millions of blacks into a life of bare subsistence on the dole, cooped up in hell hole ghettos where traditional (and genuine) safety nets like family and community broke down completely, leading to widespread resignation, violence and despair, and constant exploitation by the execrable victim industry that has sprouted up to fan the flames of resentment (and not coincidentally, to line the pockets of its self-appointed leaders). And of course Spike Lee, who was reared in a solidly middle class environment, was spared all of this, and can now indulge his voyeuristic urges to peer into the underside of modern urban life and fantasize that he has something more than simply an outsider’s passing acquaintance with it.

Ace discusses the government’s funding of a database to monitor “subversive” speech.

Take away quote: “I always know I'm engaging in ‘open debate’ when I feel the hot breath of a government censor on the back of my neck.”

It’s a much-used truism, but it’s still valid: if all of the things being done under the administration reign of Barack Obama were done under a Republican president, we’d be seeing hostile media coverage 24/7. In fact, a GOP president would probably be lucky to escape with mere impeachment ; he might well wind up with Harry Reid leading a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue with his head on a pike.

1) The Romney boomlet. How many times do establishment presidential candidates have to lose before it becomes apparent that that’s the only thing they’re especially good at?

2) The dubious gaggle of alternative GOP contenders, many of whom began the last election cycle as putative tea party hopefuls, but eventually revealed themselves to be delicate and insubstantial soufflés, collapsing into establishment goo before the onslaught of noise from the big government/amnesty/business-as-usual wing of the Republican party.

3) Hillary Clinton’s continuing popularity. She’s not inevitable, even as her party’s nominee, let alone as the next president; however, in what mature, sober environment would someone so utterly lacking in genuine accomplishments, and so heavily freighted with the baggage of corruption and ineptitude, have any real chance at all?

4) The rapidly growing segment of the population that is not only resigned, but apparently eager, to undergo the transmogrification from a free people into a lowing herd of government-fed, domesticated ruminants.

5) The mainstream media’s permanent role as a progressive bullhorn, in which it excels as a purveyor and validator of left-wing fantasy, peddling ideological salt licks to the bovine (see #4).

Monday, August 25, 2014

It is my devout wish that this depraved waste of human DNA spends the rest of what I hope is a very short life looking over his shoulder, and that he receives a missile suppository before too many days have gone by.

I hope all the jets and helicopters were removed somewhere else (the article doesn’t say). In any event, it looks like the j’s are taking their customary casual approach to the observance of general norms of decency:

The group's trademark brutality was on full display after those victories. They killed army commanders and pro-government militiamen, decapitating them before putting their bodies and heads on display. The Observatory reported similar acts following the fall of Tabqa Sunday.

I pray, if the west does work up a sufficient amount of courage and energy to deal with these depraved specimens, that our leaders do not get bogged down in the “why” of it all. Why are these people so filled with rage? Why are they doing these terrible things? The only “why” I’m interested in right now is why haven’t these maniacs been reduced to ashes yet. Extirpate them first; perhaps later we can sit around over a meditative brandy and wonder whatever caused them to act that way. Civilization is under no moral obligation to accept as a condition of its survival the necessity of understanding the deep-seated motivations of its foes, nor to meet a prerequisite of justifying its existence to savages.

In the truly charming 1935 movie, Ruggles of Red Gap, Charles Laughton plays a very traditional-minded English valet whose employer loses him to a well-heeled American in a poker game. In this scene, he teaches some of the locals a thing or two about their own history.

Friday, August 22, 2014

I believe it was James Burnham who said that it only takes one side to declare a war and define its stakes. The State Dept. apparently sees things a little differently. Bryan Preston cites State Dept. spokesimbecile Marie Harf:

“This is not about ISIL versus the United States,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf objected. “They are killing anyone who gets in their way: Sunnis, Shia Muslims, Christians, Yazidis, Iraqis, Syrians, anyone who gets in their way — and now an American.”

“So this is not about what the United States is or isn’t doing”…

Yeah, tell that to James Foley’s parents.

And I love this part: “And they [ISIL] don’t represent any religion.” Right. And the pope ain’t Catholic and Southern Baptists don’t believe in full immersion.

Wars – or whatever Harf wants to call large armed conflicts involving tens of thousands of combatants and affecting hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians – aren’t won by the side that is mired in ambivalence and willful blindness. This one certainly isn’t going to be won by a chief executive who sees the presidency as little more than something impressive to put on his resumé (or as an increasingly irritating encroachment on his golf time).

Dangerous and frightening times, my friends.

Update - From Anonymous, in the comments: "If ISIS started destroying golf courses you'd see a very different response from this administration."

In response to inquiries made by Sen. Charles Grassley, ICE released a document which, among other things, lists the zip codes of areas where some 154 illegal aliens who happened to be homicide detainees were released.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

So what are you and Old 3-Ironsides going to do about it? Chuck Hagel on the Islamic State:

"They marry ideology and a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They are tremendously well funded. This is beyond anything we have seen," Hagel told reporters.

I’m not any kind of great strategist, but it seems to me that when you’re dealing with messianic fanatics who have not only an army, but something resembling a state, at their disposal, and worldwide genocide on the brain, a few airstrikes here and there probably aren’t going to cool their bloodlust, let alone disabuse them of their expansionist dreams. I think the only real solution is a highly focused, well-coordinated campaign on their soil with overwhelming force – object: complete annihilation of the Islamic State.

This would be doable under a president who took the threat seriously, explained to the American people the scope of the action, and committed the proper resources to ensure success.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Nobody does kick-ass righteous rage like Jeff Goldstein. All I can say is, “what he said”. A small sample (but you have to read the whole thing):

We saw evil like this in the 30s and we stood by and did nothing until it hit us in Pearl Harbor, thinking it wouldn’t find its way here. Today, it’s already found its way here and is secreting itself within our country thanks to a corrupt and outrageous border policy that has all but negated our national sovereignty.

We can sit back now and show our nuanced pose to the world, then pay the price later when a US city goes up in flames. Or we can strike now with such ferocity and such finality that the threat we’re destroying has to work its way back from the stone ages.

No, not Rick Perry – Jay Nixon of Missouri, who has called for the “vigorous prosecution” of the police officer who shot Mike Brown in the town of Ferguson. For the record, the matter is still under investigation and no charges against the officer have been filed.

Nixon seems to think that his initial slow response to the incident and its aftermath can now be balanced out with a precipitate rush to mob justice. Scratch a Democrat, find a fascist (or a coward, or both).

Monday, August 18, 2014

In a nutshell, Perry sought to have Travis County’s funding for a public integrity unit cut off unless the county’s D.A. – who heads said unit – stepped down (she had previously been arrested on a DWI charge, and was belligerent to the point of having to be physically restrained). In retaliation, a pliable “special prosecutor” convened a grand jury and had it indict Perry on what are widely regarded (even by many Democrats) as ultimately indefensible charges.

Much more from Bryan Preston , including video of Lehmberg’s behavior while she was under arrest, and info on her liquor consumption, which appears to have been of Homeric proportions.

Update: Even more from Preston, on the history of Democrat lawfare in Texas, and the non-profit “public watchdog” group that lodged the initial complaint (for “watchdog” read “Democrat lapdog”).

I haven’t had anything to say about the shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, MO, or about the subsequent violence, because neither I nor anyone else seems to have all the facts; however, here’s my basic take on the general situation, regardless of what the actual facts ultimately prove to be:

1) The family of Mike Brown, and the people of Ferguson, are entitled to a thorough and objective investigation of the incident;

2) The policeman who shot Brown is entitled to due process;

3) Looting continues to be a morally dubious exercise of one’s pursuit of social justice. Regardless of the tenseness of the situation, those who possess the legal authority to act are not excused from their obligation to restore and maintain order.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Michael Bloomberg – self-appointed scourge of the Second Amendment – spared no expense in trying to defeat a pro-gun sheriff in a Democratic primary, and received yet another comeuppance. C.W. Cooke writes:

There is something of Captain Ahab about Michael Bloomberg these days — the former mayor of New York having adopted the profile of a neurotic and fevered old man whose long and checkered career has not yet managed to sate him, and whose ambition will be truly realized only when, finally, he captures his whale and avenges his bruised ego. Alas, yesterday evening, in Milwaukee, Wis., satisfaction eluded him once again, that Milwaukee County’s Sheriff David Clarke — an outspoken apostle of the right to keep and bear arms, and opponent of all that Bloomberg holds dear — winning his primary and overcoming a concerted and expensive attempt to unseat him. This one, Bloomberg had said through an intermediary, was “personal.” One suspects that the loss will be taken hard.

Unfortunately, not hard enough to persuade this monomaniac to throw in the towel on gun control. Bloomberg won’t be content until the only people who carry weapons are policemen and criminals. And if this scenario ever becomes reality, I will not grieve overmuch if he is the first person shot in the crossfire.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

I’m not much of a “thriller” enthusiast, but I greatly enjoyed a book that my son loaned me. It’s Run, by Blake Crouch, an apocalyptic novel set in more or less contemporaneous times, featuring a family that is desperately trying to find sanctuary away from the delirious violence that has beset the United States as the result of an astronomical phenomenon – a sunburst of some kind – that has activated a dormant and malevolent gene in everyone who viewed the event and turned them into merciless killers who seek to destroy those people who were not witnesses.

The novel takes us almost directly into the chaos. We see otherwise normal human beings, including cops, carrying out mass murders, there are government appeals for calm – and then the nation’s power grids shut down, and there is only the monotonous, but chilling, voice of a woman reading out the names of people targeted for extermination over the Emergency Broadcasting System.

Jack Colclough hears the names of his own family read out on the radio, and they effect a nail-biting escape from their home in Albuquerque, heading north along secondary roads and, occasionally, across open ground, relentlessly north toward Canada, where the astronomical event was not visible, and there are rumors of refugee camps. Dodging gunfire and eluding pursuit, they wind their torturous way into Colorado, encountering unspeakable horrors along the way: men, women and children shot to death, burned alive, hacked to pieces. When their vehicle breaks down, they set out on foot, up into the mountains, nearly starving. Jack, his wife Dee, their teenage daughter Naomi and their young son Cole are close to the limits of their endurance, when Jack scouts ahead to check out what appears to be a military encampment. To his horror, he discovers too late that he has walked into the middle of a band of “the affected”, and he is taken prisoner. Much of the rest of the book describes their separate but equally hair-raising adventures, as Jack seeks to escape from his tormentors, and Dee tries to find him.

The novel is a fascinating page-turner taken simply as a work of fiction; however, for me, it took on an ominous aspect of reality as the fanatical bloodlust exhibited by the affected, for whom the witnessing of the strange aurora is a near-religious experience, propels them toward genocidal attacks against normal, unaffected human beings who have suddenly become the reviled and intolerable “other” – eerily reminiscent of the wholesale savagery being committed by Islamists in Iraq and Syria at this very moment. Run is an exciting read and a cautionary tale that serves to remind us that the world can be, and frequently is, a dangerous place, and that the essential component of evil is its sheer destructiveness – and, in its purest form, self-destructiveness.

During a training demonstration at a terrorist camp north of Baghdad on Monday, a commander from the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, accidentally detonated a belt packed with explosives, killing himself and 21 trainees.

A stirring scene from The Wind and the Lion, as U.S. Marines engage in some routine kick-ass action, picking up where diplomacy leaves off (I can't remember whether I've posted this one before, but it's always good for a rerun).

Friday, August 8, 2014

Probably not. Cold fish that he is, Obama most likely saw that inaction, and silence, on the genocide being carried out by ISIS in Iraq weren't helping his image, so he has finally taken a few baby steps in the direction of confronting the demoniacal savagery of Islamic fanatics who are besieging the Kurds in the northeast and what’s left under Iraqi government administration in the south.

However, if he was, in fact, capable of being shamed into doing something, it might well have been due to this letter from Rep. Frank Wolf, which pulls no punches.

By the way, I rather think that it would be good form to retire the Nobel Peace Prize.

I assume that’s a rhetorical question with an implied negative answer: “Will the U.S. help the Kurds fight ISIS?” The Obama administration is rapidly becoming a not so innocent bystander, compounding its ambivalence toward genuine terrorism by putting such energy as it possesses into Israel bashing. Your average Kurd is probably more pro-American than our own president (though that will undoubtedly change as we abandon them to their fate).

What could you do with $100,000? You could buy a perfectly good little house in my home town; or, if you’re the Clintons, you could rent a house in the Hamptons for three weeks.

As Myron Magnet explains in a short but impassioned article, the mounting chaos of BO’s disastrous presidency is not due to mere incompetence, nor has he ceased to be “relevant”.

Anyone who believes the talk about how Barack Obama is already a lame-duck president, detached and irrelevant, is deluding himself. President Obama has accomplished more or less what he set out to accomplish. He has made himself the most consequential and transformative president since Lyndon Johnson. His foreign policy has been more systematically destructive of the world order and American power than LBJ’s Vietnam War. His wrong-headed domestic policy has proved more catastrophic and intentionally hard to correct than Johnson’s madcap War on Poverty, whose consequences still bedevil our society.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Monday, August 4, 2014

Perhaps when American citizens start dropping dead from Ebola, or perishing in a renewed wave of terrorist attacks, the government will get serious about securing our borders: “A leaked intelligence analysis from the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reveals the exact numbers of illegal immigrants entering and attempting to enter the U.S. from more than 75 different countries.”

I don’t believe there’s any room left for intelligent doubt concerning the president’s psychological alienation from the very concept of America, and his belief that the world would be a better place if our country were an amorphous and heterogeneous stew of competing cultures, unassimilable because, in his ideal polity, there would be no central body of normative beliefs for people to assimilate – save for the primacy of the state, of course, and the necessary elimination of such outmoded ideas as individual liberty and personal responsibility.

Yes, Obama is an unmitigated disaster, but the effectiveness of the body politic’s “immune system” has been declining for generations, so Obama or someone like him was inevitable. More’s the pity that the opposition is led by mental midgets, self-dealing scoundrels and quaking poltroons. How this political dog’s breakfast is to be rectified short of another revolution is quite beyond me; if this lawless administration, and its fellow-travelers in the GOP, gets what it wants with respect to amnesty, I’m not sure that a revolution at the ballot box is even going to be possible for much longer. Even without the prospect of hordes of new Democratic voters, our future is looking grim, as a secular cloud of unknowing has descended on millions of our fellow citizens, enveloping them in the grossest ignorance of the tangible value of freedom and the soul-destroying consequences of its absence, leaving them prey to the blandishments and bribery of the ruling class’s shrewdest confidence men, unwitting hitchhikers on the road to serfdom.

Friday, August 1, 2014

Sheila Jackson Lee – arguably the stupidest person currently serving in the House of Representatives – recently tried to deflect talk of impeaching Barack Obama on the grounds that Congress didn’t impeach George W. Bush. Then it quickly came out that Lee, herself, had co-authored a bill of impeachment against Bush.

When Dwayne Horner, a blogger and opinion columnist, attempted to get some clarification from Lee’s staff on what, to put it charitably, was a glaring contradiction, he was drawn ineluctably into…the Twilight Zone.

I was transferred to a gentleman on Lee’s staff. When I again asked him about the contradiction and stated that perhaps I was confused, the man said “Oh look it here, we have one of those right wing, tea-bagger nut jobs on the phone taking his cues from FOX News.”

He then accused me of being un-American, raising his voice at me while asking me to calm down, and telling me that I am just on some mission to destroy our country.

Things went pretty much downhill from there.

It’s bad enough to have a professional ruling class whose members are obsessed with a sense of entitlement; but to have one so heavily populated by belligerent morons is really intolerable.

In more civilized times, leaders with the records of Andrew Cuomo or Pat Quinn would go into retirement, tending to the vineyards at their villas in decent obscurity, far from the seat of power. That in our own time such miscreants endure and thrive is enough to make one nostalgic for the Roman practice of exile, if not for the Japanese practice of ritual disembowelment.